The Half-Court Hero

by Mike Lupica

  ALSO BY #1 BESTSELLER MIKE LUPICA

  Travel Team

  Heat

  Miracle on 49th Street

  Summer Ball

  The Big Field

  Million-Dollar Throw

  The Batboy

  Hero

  The Underdogs

  True Legend

  QB 1

  Fantasy League

  Fast Break

  Last Man Out

  Lone Stars

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Published simultaneously in the United States of America by Philomel Books and Puffin Books, imprints of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018

  Text copyright © 2018 by Mike Lupica

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Chris Danger

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE.

  Puffin Books Ebook ISBN: 9780425289419

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Hannah Grace Lupica

  One more time now that she’s off to college.

  Boy oh boy. What a girl.

  CONTENTS

  Also by #1 Bestseller Mike Lupica

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  ONE

  It was the Thursday after school ended for the summer in Middletown. The Walker twins, Zach and Zoe, would be heading off to camp the following Monday. But before camp was scheduled to start, Zach and Zoe had signed up to play in a basketball tournament for third-graders at Wesley Park.

  They had come up with the idea the day before school let out. As soon as they mentioned it to a few kids in their class, word spread fast. Soon, most of their classmates were eager to join. The twins’ dad, Danny Walker, helped them organize the tournament. Zach and Zoe posted a sign-up sheet at the local community rec center that evening and quickly discovered they had enough players for eight teams!

  Now, the first games were scheduled for the next day, Friday. The tournament would continue through the weekend, with the championship game set for Sunday afternoon.

  Each team was split, three boys and three girls. Because Zach and Zoe’s dad was their coach, the eight-year-old twins were getting to do something they hardly ever got to do in sports:

  Play on the same team.

  From the moment they found out, they couldn’t help their excitement. “Game on!” they would say to each other whenever they got the chance.

  Today, Thursday, was their last day of practice. Zach and Zoe’s grandfather, Richie, planned to walk them to Wesley Park after breakfast. Danny Walker, who was a sports reporter on TV, had to work that day, so their friend and teammate Malik Jones’s father would be running practice.

  Grandpa Richie had once been a basketball star himself. First in college and then in the NBA, just like his son, Danny, had been. Zach and Zoe always loved it when their dad and grandfather joked with each other about who was the better point guard. In fact, they were doing it at breakfast.

  “You know I was the better passer,” their dad said.

  “But I was a better dribbler,” Grandpa Richie said, grinning. “And the better shooter.”

  “They sound like us!” Zoe said as she looked at her brother.

  Breakfast was a lot of fun, the way it always was when Grandpa Richie came over. He lived close by, and came for breakfast once in a while. But now that school was out and Zach and Zoe weren’t rushing to catch the bus, Grandpa Richie had come for breakfast every day that week. And every day Grandpa Richie arrived with his morning newspaper rolled up under his arm.

  Zach and Zoe’s mom, Tess, often said Grandpa Richie would rather skip eating his cereal in the morning than miss reading the sports section of the paper.

  “I like to keep up with the news,” Grandpa Richie liked to say. “Good news and bad.”

  The bad news at breakfast today hadn’t come from the morning paper, though. It came from Zach and Zoe. They told Grandpa Richie the same thing they’d told their parents the night before. When they showed up at the Wesley Park basketball court earlier that week, the rims were missing nets.

  Grandpa Richie looked up from his newspaper, and said, “Something like that doesn’t just affect the two of you. It might affect a hundred kids this summer.”

  “Maybe even more,” Zach and Zoe’s dad said.

  “That court needs more than new nets,” their mom said. “But I was at a meeting for the town board just yesterday. They told me there’s nothing in the budget for improvements. All their money is going toward building an addition to the community rec center.”

  “Well,” Grandpa Richie said, “somebody ought to do something. A lot has changed in the world since I was the twins’ age. But a good basketball court still matters.”

  After breakfast, Zach, Zoe, and Grandpa Richie left the house and headed toward the park.

  Grandpa Richie finally stopped talking about the court as he and the twins walked through the big archway at the entrance to Wesley Park. He said it was time to change the subject to something happier:

  Basketball.

  “I know you two get a kick out of listening to me and your dad argue about who was the better player when we were young,” Grandpa Richie said. “But I’ve never asked which one of you is the better point guard.”

  Without hesitating, and without knowing what the other twin would do, Zach pointed at Zoe at the exact same moment she pointed at him.

  The twins smiled at each other. They saw Grandpa Richie smile, too. He always seemed to be smiling when he was with them.

  “Who really was the better point guard, you or Dad?” Zach asked.

  “He was,” Grandpa Richie said. “But don’t tell him I said so.”

  “You know what we should do,” Zoe said. “When our tournament is over, we should have a game of two-on-two in our driveway. Zach, you can play with Grandpa Richie against Dad and me.”

  “That would be awesome!” Zach said.

  “Awesomer than awesome!” Zoe said.

  Then Zoe turned and nodded at her brother, and the two of them gave each other their special high five. The one where they spun around, bumped hips and elbows, then jumped up and slapped palms.

  “We didn’t jump around that way when I was young,” Grandpa Richie said. “I really am getting old.”

  Zach and Zoe giggled the way they always did when their grandfather talked about how old he was. They just tho
ught it was funny because he was actually younger than most of the grandparents they knew.

  “But holding a basketball in my hands still makes me feel young,” he said.

  Grandpa Richie was carrying Zach and Zoe’s basketball on his hip. Suddenly, he started dribbling it, first with his right hand, then with his left. Then he bounced it through his legs and caught it from behind with his right hand without looking. Next, he flipped it over his head and caught it. Finally, he spun it on the index finger of his right hand.

  “You’re as quick as lightning!” Zoe said.

  “As a matter of fact,” Grandpa Richie said, “that’s what my teammates used to say about me.”

  Then he stopped in his tracks. Zach and Zoe saw him staring up ahead at the basketball court.

  “Hey,” he said, “check out those baskets!”

  He was smiling again. And when Zach and Zoe saw what he meant, they did, too.

  The baskets on both ends of the court now had new white nets hanging from them.

  “Where did those come from?” Zoe said.

  “Maybe somebody just decided to do something nice for us,” Zach answered.

  “Or . . .” Zoe said, “maybe we’ve got a mystery on our hands!”

  “They’re just nets,” Zach said. “It’s probably not much of a mystery.”

  “It’s still mysterious,” Zoe said, her face lighting up. “Which makes it a mystery. We need to find out who did this.”

  Here we go again, Zach thought.

  TWO

  Grandpa Richie said he could only watch practice for a few minutes. He had his own weekly basketball game that morning at the rec center.

  “Any advice for us before you leave?” Zoe asked.

  “If you’re open, shoot,” he said. “If somebody else is open, pass the ball and let them shoot. Most of all, have fun.”

  “That’s exactly what Dad always tells us,” Zach said.

  Grandpa Richie winked. “Where do you think he got it from?” Then he said goodbye to the twins and walked out of the park.

  The other members of their team were already warming up on the court. Malik and his dad were there. So were Mateo Salazar and Lily Holmes and Kari Stuart. Everybody was excited about the new nets.

  “Mom’s right,” Zoe said. “This court does need a lot more than nets.”

  As he checked out the court, Zach could see that the lines needed painting. In fact, the whole court looked like it could use a new coat of paint. Zoe said the benches looked like they might fall apart if somebody tried to sit on them.

  “That’s only if you’re willing to risk the splinters,” Kari said.

  “But it’s still a basketball court,” Zach said.

  “And we do have a big game on it tomorrow,” Zoe said, and shrugged.

  “And we finally get to be teammates,” Zach said, excited.

  “We need to do what Mom always tells us to do,” said Zoe.

  “Focus on the positives,” Zach finished for her.

  Once everyone had warmed up, Malik’s dad suggested a game of three-on-three. He split them into two teams. Zach, Mateo, and Lily were on one team. Zoe, Kari, and Malik—their tallest player—were on the other. They decided the first team to ten baskets would win.

  It turned into a really good, even game. The two teams traded baskets the whole time until the score was tied 9–9. Zach’s team had the ball. He passed to Mateo over on the left side, and Mateo broke for the basket as soon as Zach did. It was Zach and Zoe’s favorite play, one their dad said was as old as the game of basketball itself:

  The Give-and-Go.

  Zoe expected her brother would make that move as soon as he gave up the ball. They practiced it at home all the time with their dad. It’s when you pass the ball to a teammate while you get yourself open. Then your teammate throws the ball back to you to shoot. This time, Zach managed to get past his sister. Malik tried to switch over and cover him as soon as Zach received Mateo’s bounce pass. But he was a step too late. Zach was wide open now, and he easily banked the ball off the backboard. It swished through the new net and won the practice game for his team.

  It was Malik who realized the ball had gone bouncing away, toward the bench closest to them. He jogged after it so they could hand it over to the next team to practice.

  But all of a sudden, Malik stumbled in a hole in front of the bench and fell forward. He was going just fast enough that he wasn’t able to stop himself in time. They all watched as Malik went crashing into the bench. He scraped the back of his hand on a jagged wooden slat jutting out.

  Everyone ran toward Malik when they heard him cry out in pain. His dad got to him first. Malik’s hand was bleeding, but he said the cut wasn’t that big a deal. His dad cleaned it off with some water, rubbed first-aid cream on it, then covered the cut with a Band-Aid. Malik insisted if the game hadn’t just ended, he would have been able to keep playing.

  He was even able to joke about his injury.

  “I didn’t just lose to you guys,” Malik said to Zach. “I lost to a bench, too!

  But Malik’s dad was clearly angry as he stared down at the bench. There were sharp, jagged edges, but one of the slats where you’d normally sit was missing, too. He walked down the court and saw that the bench at the other end wasn’t much better.

  “This is unacceptable,” he said. “I guess I didn’t notice yesterday what kind of shape this court is really in. Somebody should at least do something about these benches.”

  At that point, Malik’s mom showed up. When she found out what had happened to her son, she was just as angry as her husband.

  “Something must be done about this court,” she said, shaking her head. “At least the nets have been replaced.”

  “Maybe the court has a guardian angel who hung the nets,” Zach wondered aloud. “But if that’s the case, they have more work to do.”

  Zoe looked deep in thought. “That’s right,” she said. “And it could be anybody.”

  THREE

  At dinner that night, Zach and Zoe told their parents about what happened to Malik. Grandpa Richie, who was also at the dinner table, had already heard the story after picking up Zach and Zoe from practice.

  “Sometimes,” Grandpa Richie said, “I feel as if they haven’t made any real improvements to those courts since I was a boy.”

  “There’s only so much money in the budget,” Zach and Zoe’s mom said.

  Grandpa Richie frowned. “But parks are important to kids, especially in the summer.”

  “Nobody on the town board would disagree,” Tess Walker said. “But they also feel the rec center is important to the community year round.”

  “I stopped by and looked at the court on the way home from work,” Danny Walker said. “It’s perfectly fine to play on. But Dad’s right. Everything over there just looks really run-down.”

  “It’s not right,” Grandpa Richie said. “I spent half my summers on that court when I was Zach and Zoe’s age.”

  “Same,” said Danny, nodding in agreement.

  Then they stopped talking about the court and shifted to a better topic: the basketball tournament.

  Zach and Zoe knew both their parents cared about all sports. But basketball was the sport their dad loved most. Above all, he loved teaching Zach and Zoe everything he knew about the game.

  “I can’t tell you how excited I am to coach you two,” Danny said.

  “We all know that, dear,” their mom said, smiling.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Pretty much, Dad,” Zach said, and they all laughed.

  After everyone helped clear the table, and Grandpa Richie went home, Zach and Zoe decided to go for a walk. It would only be a short one, as usual. Halfway up the block and back, with their parents watching from the front porch. Zach and Zoe knew how much their mom loved this time of ye
ar. During the summer, Tess loved to come outside in the evening, when the fireflies started to appear in their yard.

  Zach and Zoe enjoyed those summer nights as much as their mom. But they loved their walks even better. They never got tired of being together—because, in addition to being brother and sister, they were also best friends.

  They did some of their best thinking on walks like these. And tonight Zach could tell Zoe had something on her mind. He could always tell. Watching her face, Zach imagined Zoe having a whole conversation inside her head before saying anything out loud.

  “What if Mom and Dad put up the new nets and are keeping it a secret?” Zoe wondered.

  “You could be right,” Zach said. “One of their favorite things is surprising people with presents. And we both know they’re really good at holding on to secrets.”

  “That’s true. But what I can’t figure out is why they wouldn’t tell us. We’ve already got the new nets,” Zoe said.

  “It’s a mystery,” Zach said, and winked at his sister.

  They walked up the sidewalk as far as they usually did. If they went any farther, their parents wouldn’t be able to see them. Then they turned back for home.

  “But you know, it could be almost anybody in town who put up those nets,” Zach said.

  “I know that,” Zoe said. “But I’ve just got a feeling it’s somebody who has something to do with our team.”

  “One of those feelings you get,” Zach said.

  “Hey, you know how often those feelings turn out to be right,” she reminded him.

  “Do I ever,” Zach said.

  They started up their front walk and saw their parents smile and wave at them from the porch.

  “So who do you think put those nets up?” Zach asked.

  “I don’t know,” Zoe said.

  He waited, knowing what his sister was going to say next. On this one, you didn’t have to be a mind reader.

  “At least not yet,” she added.